YouTube Adding Pay-Per-View Option For Live Streams

Typically one hops on YouTube to find a music video, a viral video, a cat video, or some combination of the three. I’m sure there are other options, but that covers the necessities. These videos, of course, already exist and are there for you to peruse freely. YouTube also has YouTube Live, a live streaming service that allows people to leverage YouTube’s infrastructure to broadcast live events to the site’s user base.

Today, YouTube Live turned a year old and, in celebration, announced that they will be adding a component that allows broadcasters to monetize their live streams, either through the use of advertisement or through the use of a regionally-defined paywall. The latter option probably raises the eyebrows of everyone who has come to accept YouTube as a free service, and it’ll be interesting to see what kind of backlash there may be to the feature. [Mashable]